THE PONTIC MUSIC HOME PAGE

" The structure of these (Pontic) songs is quite different from those we meet in ancient Greek music or Turkish music as we know them. They seem to belong to an archaic culture related to the Celtic family "

Alain Danielou - International Institute for Comparative Music Studies - liner notes for a UNESCO Recording

In 1922 the Treaty of Lausanne officially ended the First World War.
One of the terms of the Treaty stated
that - except for the areas of Thrace and Constantinople (present
day Istanbul) - all Muslims in Greece
were to be transferred to Turkey and all Orthodox Christians in
Turkey were to be transferred to Greece.
In this huge uprooting of many ancient peoples and cultures, the
Greeks of Pontos were settled mostly in
Macedonia. In many cases whole villages were moved together , for
example, villagers from Matsouka to
Kavala, those from Kars to Kilkis and so on. For the last three
quarters of a century, Pontic culture has been
mostly an unknown to the world, including in Greece itself, and is
now just beginning to become exposed
to the world at large.